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This is what I've been thinking for awhile. A huge number of the detractors predicted that Tesla would get crushed by commoditized goods that they spent the R&D

This is what I've been thinking for awhile. A huge number of the detractors predicted that Tesla would get crushed by commoditized goods that they spent the R&D dollars on, namely batteries. But I don't think the capacity is even remotely there for other manufacturers to come in and just buy up energy storage on the open market. Eventually it'll show up due to demand but the flywheel is slow to turn. I think a 3-4 year head start is about right and also in line with most technological head starts (Bezos famously talked about it some time ago and why AWS is the reason they are winning since it had no viable competitor for 7+ years), but like Amazon/AWS, if it takes any longer than that... you're handing Elon a huge amount of time.

ams6110 8y ago
> I don't think the capacity is even remotely there for other manufacturers to come in and just buy up energy storage on the open market If this is the case, doesn't it destroy the arguments of renewable energy advocates that "utility scale" batteries to store solar/wind energy are anywhere close to being realistic?
- icelancer 8y ago
  In the short-term, I'd say so. But I think it's realistic on the timescale that people care about large-scale renewable energy, which is the end of my generation (30ish year old) and the middle of the next, so like 2040-2050.